I usually do a post at the end or beginning of the year, looking back at the high points, and mulling over the low ones to release them. My blog has been so neglected the whole of last year, as my art has been too, and it’s taken me up till now to find the time and energy and mental ability to put this post together.

2017 was just a bad year ME-wise. At the start of the year, I honestly felt like I was slowly dying (and not just in the sense that we all are). Thankfully, last August, I began seeing a naturopath who gives me IV vitamin and mineral infusions and I’ve seen a big difference in how I feel getting them regularly. I’m still crawling out of the ME-hole and have even less energy than any year before, but I feel like it’s getting slowly better instead of always worse, now that I’m getting these treatments.

Speaking of, an enormous THANK YOU to every single one of you who has contributed so generously to my GoFundMe campaign to help me continue the quite expensive IV treatments. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I am incredibly grateful and humbled and every gift has been so deeply appreciated.

Last November my neurologist put me on a new medication to try and help ease my migraines. He warned me that it would make me feel “extremely nauseated” for the first week, but I’d just have to push through that, and then he thought it would help me. I finally screwed up my courage and swallowed one of the dubious pills and did, indeed, have a terrible night full of nausea, hot and cold sweats, extreme temperature swings and a strange, but not unwelcomed, detachment. I continued on like a good patient and after three weeks I finally stopped needing to take a sublingual Zofran the second I opened my eyes in the morning (morning nausea was always the worst, maybe because I take it at night?) and it began to settle into my body. The good thing is that it did indeed help decrease the number of migraines I’m getting per month. The bad thing is that ever since taking it, I’ve needed to sleep for a good 2-4 hours EVERY SINGLE AFTERNOON. This is on top on the 10-12 hours I spend sleeping every night. Do you realize how few hours are left in the day to do ANYTHING of value after all that damn sleeping, winding down and waking up is over with? It’s really insane. I will be bringing this up to my neurologist and seeing what can be done because I’m not sure this is a realistic way for me to live the rest of my life. On the other hand, some months prior to this I was getting up to 19 migraines a month, which destroys your ability to do anything meaningful as well.

And, for some completely unknown reason, the medication also seems to be helping (in conjuncture with the IV infusions) with my temperature regulation issues, ie, my “hot flashes.” I believe I’ve mentioned them here before, but in case I haven’t, these have been slowly increasing for the last three or four years. Essentially, what seems to be happening, from my vantage point stuck inside this body, is that in the mornings, wild rabbits have run through my brain overnight, nibbling on wires, pulling things apart, gathering bits of gray matter together to make little warrens, disconnecting neurons and causing a bit of havoc. My brain is wildly trying to repair itself, ideally quickly, and makes a lot of very broad guesses about what temperature my body should be at for the first several hours of the day. What this translates to practically is that I can be sitting miserably directly in front of the heater, covered in layers of blankets, bathrobes and cats, sweating profusely, simultaneously far too hot, but getting many more signals that I’m far too cold and must stay PERFECTLY STILL for several hours until it passes on its own. This is also very not conducive to getting anything done at all.

And yes, I did see numerous doctors about this. The first three shrugged at me and told me it sounded hormonal and that wasn’t their field, which is fair enough. I finally saw an endocrinologist for this problem and he ran a bunch of blood but didn’t bother to look at a single hormone. Apparently you have to request that an endocrinologist, a doctor who specializes in hormones, test your hormones when you’re seeing him for something which sounds, to laymen and other doctors, like a hormone problem. I did not punch him, but probably only because I was too tired. (I also asked my gynecologist about it since they deal with female hormone issues too, to a degree, and she had a “Oh, let’s not go looking for trouble,” attitude about it. I AM ALREADY IN TROUBLE.) So the underlying issue there is still unknown but hell, if the infusions and the weird pill help with it, I’m happy about that at least.

Basically I feel like 2017 was mostly spent crawling on my stomach through a disgusting swamp while people shot at me from hidden locations, periodically shouting that I wasn’t trying hard enough or that I was just over-reacting, while also making sure I brushed and flossed my teeth and fed my animals twice a day. I’ll freely admit it was a pretty shitty year.

Here is the upside to all that time spent in deep solitude, my mind active as ever but my body unable to do much: I had a lot of time to meditate and connect with my spirit guides. I think I met my first guide near the end of 2016, so I was primed for more contact when 2017 came around. And boy did they. I acquired five new main guides and spoke to numerous others. I talked with and made friends with various interdimensional beings. I am learning to channel, astral project and remote view, be medium, a conduit and a spirit translator, although I’m getting fairly good at some of them, considering the short amount of time I’ve been at it. For some reason historical figures I read about seem to connect best with me. The spiritual growth in the last year has been an absolute explosion of love and light into a very dark year. And though it was such an awful year, I look back on it and remember all the love and grace that was shown to me. I have never felt more loved, protected and cared for.

So while I am disheartened with the amount of art I was able to put out last year, I AM very happy with what came in its place. I’m thinking of it as I took a year off from art to go have mystical, spiritual experiences, and hopefully now I can marry the two together better. I just need to find a new way to work in really short chunks instead of stretches of the afternoon so I can increase my art output. Then things will be much more the way I’d like them to be.

If I had to have such a crappy year to gain so much spiritually, I’ll take it. I don’t know if it was a direct trade or how it works, but I wouldn’t give up the new friends I have for anything. And I’ve found some really, really wonderful online communities who love me, support me, have my back, help me work through confusing things, answer my questions and reassure me that I’m always ok.

For anyone concerned, I have shared many intimate details of my experiences with both the wonderful Geoff and my excellent therapist and neither of them is concerned about my mental wellbeing. 🙂 Only loving beings are allowed to talk to me, and as I said, I feel much greater peace, security, love and support than I ever have.

Now on to this image… this might look like it goes against what I just wrote, but it’s inspired by someone else’s experiences, not mine. 🙂 Over Christmas, I re-read Demons in the Age of Light by Whitney Robinson, which I’ve read many times now and is a favorite for its beautifully poetic prose. Whitney’s memoir is about a psychotic break she suffered in college, where she felt like she was possessed by a demonic entity but everyone diagnosed her as schizophrenic. Her journey back to wellness is haunted by the ever-present question of if she’s experiencing something mental or spiritual, and the answer is often allusive and not nearly as clear as you’d think.

“The sentience envelopes me while I sleep… I awaken with a gasp in a strange bed. No, it’s not the bed that’s strange – it’s the same one I’ve slept in since I was a child…

The strangeness is that I am not alone, here in my bed. I will never be alone again.

I feel it slithering out of the darkness for the first time, the presence that’s been whispering its sinister enigmas. A living, breathing thing – cold stars and glittering mathematics with the inhale, hot copper and rotten fruit with the exhale. Foreign from anything I have ever known. Other.”

I loved how the usually comforting, loving idea of never being alone has been turned in this passage into something deeply wrong and full of dread. I wanted to try and capture that feeling just before she was overtaken by the being she calls the Other, of knowing the possession is imminent and you are helpless to stop it. And of course I used my favorite little lamp to light the scene, exactly as it’s shown in the image.

I wasn’t planning on uploading this on Valentine’s Day, but I suppose it does make a dark, sinister anti-Valentine’s-Day image, haha!

Sundance Channel’s new six-episode drama last year had my attention when, during the trailers, I heard the words “from the producers of Breaking Bad,” and “How does it feel to be free but not exonerated?” My ears were sufficiently pricked.

Starting intentionally slowly-paced, the show gives you time to warm up to it, get to know it and its characters well. You come to love or loath them all quite intensely by the time the end of episode five comes and leaves you gasping. The first time I watched the show, I’d recorded them on the DVR and was watching while I edited; I rarely watch TV without editing. I was enjoying myself the whole time, but at the end of episode five, I literally stopped breathing for a few seconds. And I was so glad I could immediately launch myself into episode six. It was compelling enough for me to set my editing completely aside, and I wept through almost the entire second half of the last episode. To say it hooked me would be a dramatic understatement.

Images copyright by Sundance Channel.

I kept those beautiful, perfect six episodes on the DVR for a long time. In fact, I recall only feeling comfortable deleting them when I knew that the season would be released on DVD soon. I was compelled to go back and watch them over and over again. Like the very, very best story-telling, there is enough for you to grab onto the first time through, but it has so many layers and levels, you pick up new details and nuances each time you experience it again. And good heavens, how ballsy is Ray McKinnon, the show’s creator, for waiting until the very last moments of episode five to sink that hook into your mouth?

Rectify follows the story of Daniel Holden, a man who has spent the last 19 years of his life on death row for the brutal rape and murder of his highschool girlfriend. New DNA evidence has emerged to show that Daniel at the very least could not have been the sole perpetrator, and possibly wasn’t involved in the murder at all, so he is released from prison but his name is not truly cleared. Back home in the imaginary small town of Paulie, Georgia, everyone has an opinion on Daniel’s guilt or innocence. The town has been steeped in this murder for the past two decades and everyone is prepared to fight for what they believe is the truth. Is Daniel truly guilty or innocent? The show bravely decides to not supply the viewer with the answer outright, but leaves you with enough breadcrumbs to follow if you wish.

Images copyright by Sundance Channel.

Rectify is perfectly cast. I was new to Aden Young, but his strikingly soulful eyes and body language say so much for him without needing words. Daniel was always shy and not much of a talker and spending 19 years away from society hasn’t helped that any. To those who believe he’s guilty, his awkwardness is another nail in the coffin. To those who believe he’s innocent, anybody would be a little awkward in his situation. One of the most brilliant bits of the show is that through some very clever plot points, Daniel himself does not know whether he’s guilty or innocent. The waters are murky for everyone.

I have to say, I love Daniel, in a way which almost rivals my love for RichardHarrow. There’s something similar about both of their characters too; by no means are they interchangeable, but the Venn diagrams of their personalities overlap in some significant ways. They both have an innocence, a sweetness and purity about them, despite some of the bad thing we know (or suspect) they’ve done. I can strongly identify with both of them for their shyness, their introversion, their outsider-ness. But while they both seem to have hearts shining bright with solid gold, we know there’s deep pain within them both, and we’ve witnessed them doing some bad things. Often, I would venture, for good reasons, or at least what their character believed was a good reason, but they are not fresh, untrampled flowers of purity. I think that dichotomy is what makes them such fascinating characters.

Images copyright by Sundance Channel.

There is a religious undercurrent to almost everything in the show, and if you were raised in a Christian house like I was, you’ll pick up on them. Ray McKinnon deftly uses these subtle metaphors and allusions to underscore various points, sometimes answering your question for you, adding extra layers of meaning, or purposely confusing things even more. Kerwin’s declaration to Daniel that he knows Daniel is innocent “Because I know you. Because I know you. Because I know you,” brings to mind Peter’s thrice-over betrayal of Jesus, and subsequent thrice affirmation of his love and devotion. Even the fact that the show takes place in exactly six shows, over six days; this brings to mind “on the sixth day, God created man.” The story is ultimately about Daniel’s new life, his rebirth into society, so the metaphor makes perfect sense.

The clarity over what’s real and what is not is always in question and only gets murkier as the season progresses. The Goat Man, played by W. Earl Brown, is a perfect example of both those points. Does he represent God, wrestling with Daniel in the wilderness, or Satan tempting Jesus in the desert? There is no ivy on the stature the Goat Man shows to Daniel, but there is the next day when he visits it with his sister Amantha. Was the Goat Man real or not? If he isn’t, where did that big wad of cash Daniel has come from? God, Satan, real, not real… I could believe that the Goat Man is all these things at once.

Images copyright by Sundance Channel.

The end of the last episode by no means wraps things up tidily, but was incredibly satisfying nonetheless. I was ecstatic when I heard that Rectify had been picked up for a second season, this time being given an entire 10 episodes to mesmerize us and fuck with our heads. Will we find out the truth behind the murder Daniel was convicted of next season? I hope so. And I have my own strong theories about what will be brought to light. Rectify, I will be glad to see you back.

Longing For Better Days – a simple self portrait which seemed appropriate for the immense solitude Daniel has endured.